Being gay isn't a choice, you born like that, but isn't until a certain age that you discover your sexual orientation. Look at me, I'm gay, I didn't choose to be like that, I discovered it by myself, even if I said many times that I was going to get a girlfriend, a wife and stuff as a kid... until I discovered which gender I really liked and makes me feel... I don't know how to say it without sound explicit

If being LGBT is a choice then I don't know why there's straight guys who feel disgusted when another guy is too close to them, if these straight guys "decide to be gay" it wouldn't work, because they don't like relations with people of their same gender just girls, it's a orientation, it's how you born, not a decision

Changed the topic name from "Is being Gay a choice" to "Is being homosexual a choice" So people wouldn't have that joke about "Gay" means "Happy" (It does, but i don't want some smart aleck saying that.)

Last edited by Jerrysmbxworld on Tue May 15, 2018 6:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm pretty sure that you have to be born Gay. But for females, it's a choice

''gay females'' does exists, but they're called lesbians

Gay is sometimes used as an umbrella term for every sexuality that deviates from heteronormativity, similar to the word "queer", but some people don't like to use that word due to its negative connotations, that's why you hear gay used instead.

I had an argument about this in another server actually. We were talking about the supposed gay gene and whether being gay is genetic, starts from birth, is environmental, a choice, or some combination thereof. I don't believe genetics have much to do with behavior nor that genetic determinism is a valid concept in and of itself. A gene just codes for a protein, and that hasn't been demonstrated conclusively to dictate something as complicated as human sexuality.

People definitely don't choose to be gay in the sense that you choose what movie you want to go watch at a movie theater, regardless of gender. There may be some life choices involved at some point but it's not some voluntary thing you go and choose at some point in your life. Ingrained from birth or not, sexuality (or a lack thereof) is basically an innate trait that depends on the person.

Love and Tolerance FTW!!previously Pseudo-dino but you probably guessed that yourself

People definitely don't choose to be gay in the sense that you choose what movie you want to go watch at a movie theater, regardless of gender. There may be some life choices involved at some point but it's not some voluntary thing you go and choose at some point in your life. Ingrained from birth or not, sexuality (or a lack thereof) is basically an innate trait that depends on the person.

I think this might be closest to the right answer. Everyone is a bit different from person to person, and when they accumulate patterns emerge and we label it. There's just no way of knowing for sure yet how it arises, but it's not a simple choice or a direct consequence of inescapable genetics.

In the end sexuality is just a preference of taste. I always use the pizza metaphor. Some like pizza with pineapples, some like pizza with pepperoni, some like pizza with both and some people don't like pizza at all. And then there is varying degrees on how often you like pizza and what mix of pepperoni and pineapples you prefer on your pizza. Most people are under the assumption that it's a choice to like pineapple on pizza since it's such a controversial thing to like in our society, but whether you actually like it or not is not something you actively decide on. The only choice lies in whether you embrace that you like pizza with pineapple.

The problem with metaphors and analogies like that is it turns it into a choice and it opens the door to arguments that use the same logic to attack by taking it one step further. For example someone could say:

"People have different tastes for food. Some people like junk food and some people like to eat healthy, others eat whatever they want. People make choices but their taste has different outcomes, and some of which are undesirable in society."

It's very hard to come up with good and consistent arguments that don't open the flood gates for just bad rhetoric. I just default to "I don't know" when trying to justify any biology, and point to what I do know when it comes to the consequences of behavior and the reaction to it. I don't know biology well, but I am familiar with how different actions and circumstances effect different people and that the consequences can be discerned to be objectively good or bad unlike sexuality. If someone were to say "homosexuality is wrong because of the disease they spread like HIV," this is pointing out that the HIV is a negative consequence and linked to homosexuality due to the disproportionate infection rate. It would be important to point out that worldwide straight people have the most instances of HIV infection, and that in America and Western Europe it's skewed toward homosexual and bisexual men more because we have effective treatments and prevention for passing on the disease from mother to child and blood transfusions. And on top of that there's a disparity between race when it comes to HIV transmission (1 in 11 chance for white MSM, 1 in 2 for black MSM(source)) which makes it even more skewed toward social factors like access to treatment and attitudes toward it rather than homosexuality being morally wrong like the argument suggests. It's also interesting to note that when pointing out higher risk groups like African people, black Americans, gay/bi Americans and Europeans, and human trafficking victims is that the common denominator for all of them is sexual contact without a condom. This covers all the risk groups including the straight population which is a consistent and solid argument.